Signer son arrêt de mort
Meaning: To take an action that guarantees your own downfall.
Language: French
Literally: To sign one's own death warrant
Category: Daily Life
Origin: An arrêt is a court's binding ruling, and a death sentence required a signature to take effect. The figure is of the condemned supplying that signature themselves — the ruin is self-authored.
More idioms — Daily Life
- Un homme de l'art — A qualified professional, especially a physician.
- C'est du grand art — That is masterfully done.
- L'enfance de l'art — Utterly elementary; child's play.
- À l'article de la mort — At the very point of dying.
- De bon augure — A promising sign; its opposite, de mauvais augure, means ominous.
- Mesurer à l'aune de — To judge something by a particular standard.
More French idioms
- L'avocat du diable — Someone who argues a position they do not hold in order to test it.
- Dans tous les azimuts — In every direction at once; scattered and unfocused.
- Une tour de Babel — A place of hopeless confusion, especially one where nobody speaks the same language.
- Plier bagage — To pack up and clear off, usually in a hurry.
- Ça fait un bail — It has been ages.
- Un baiser de Judas — A show of affection that conceals a betrayal.
From our false friends
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- Ignorer — Actually means 'to be unaware of' or 'not to know'. J'ignore la réponse = I don't know th…
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